Nobel laureate James Buchanan is the intellectual linchpin of the Koch-funded attack on democratic institutions.
If the Tennessee-born economist James McGill Buchanan were alive today, it would suit him just fine that most well-informed journalists, liberal politicians, and even many economics students have little understanding of his work.
The reason? Duke historian Nancy MacLean contends that his philosophy is so stark that even young libertarian acolytes are only introduced to it after they have accepted the relatively sunny perspective of Ayn Rand. (Yes, you read that correctly).
If Americans really knew what Buchanan thought and promoted, and how destructively his vision is manifesting under their noses, it would dawn on them how close the country is to a transformation most would not even want to imagine, much less accept.
Buchanan’s view of human nature was distinctly dismal. Adam Smith saw human beings as self-interested and hungry for personal power and material comfort, but he also acknowledged social instincts like compassion and fairness.
Buchanan, in contrast, insisted that people were primarily driven by venal self-interest.
Crediting people with altruism or a desire to serve others was “romantic” fantasy: politicians and government workers were out for themselves, and so, for that matter, were teachers, doctors, and civil rights activists. They wanted to control others and wrest away their resources: “Each person seeks mastery over a world of slaves,” he wrote in his 1975 book, The Limits of Liberty.
The people who needed protection were property owners, and their rights could only be secured though constitutional limits to prevent the majority of voters from encroaching on them, an idea Buchanan lays out in works like Property as a Guarantor of Liberty (1993).
Buchanan saw society as a cutthroat realm of makers (entrepreneurs) constantly under siege by takers (everybody else).
His own language was often more stark, warning the alleged “prey” of “parasites” and “predators” out to fleece them. https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/meet-the-economist-behind-the-one-percents-stealth-takeover-of-america
Donald Trump’s presidency has raised a question that many of us never thought we’d be asking: Is our democracy in danger?
Harvard professors Steven #Levitsky and Daniel #Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is YES.
Democracy no longer ends with a bang—in a revolution or military coup—but with a whimper: the slow, steady #weakening of critical institutions, such as the #judiciary and the #press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political #norms.
The good news is that there are several exit ramps on the road to #authoritarianism.
The bad news is that, by electing Trump, we have already passed the first one.
Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical and global examples, from 1930s Europe to contemporary #Hungary, #Turkey, and #Venezuela, to the American South during #Jim#Crow, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies die—and how ours can be saved.
"Third, homeowners and landlords would be told that there will be no new energy efficiency regulations on homes. Ministers had been considering imposing fines on landlords who fail to upgrade their properties to a certain level of energy efficiency."
Because #energyefficiency is good for a)the planet, b) the individual who lives in the house, c) the owner of the house, d) the tradespeople who do the installing.